Swizec Teller is a software engineer, speaker, and educator sharing lessons from his journey from junior developer to Silicon Valley. He writes about engineering skills, career growth, mindset, and practical tactics for succeeding in tech.
58 articles from this blog
A software engineer shares three highly effective production alerts for catching bugs and system issues, based on real-world experience.
Explores the responsibilities and mindset shift required to become a senior engineer, focusing on ownership, vision, and business impact.
A software engineer shares practical advice on mentoring, focusing on patience, framing advice, and navigating leadership growth within tech teams.
How Cursor's Slack integration with AI background agents automates coding tasks, changes developer workflows, and reduces mental load for tech leads.
A senior engineer shares their philosophy on mentoring software engineers, focusing on building trust, hands-on learning, and scaling team capabilities.
An engineering manager reflects on the role's challenges, feeling accountable but not directly credited, and compares it to surfing.
A software engineer explains the pitfalls of organizing code into generic 'utils' modules, using a real-world example of circular dependencies.
Argues that AI won't replace software engineers due to the inherent complexity of development and stakeholder management.
Summarizes key insights from three engineering management books, focusing on psychological safety, effective vs. efficient work, and managing hypergrowth.
Explores how Conway's Law influences software architecture, comparing solo development to collaborative teamwork and its impact on code structure.
Explores common pitfalls in software abstraction like DRY misuse, lasagna code, and util files, offering advice for scalable design.
The article critiques the DRY principle, explaining how its overzealous application can lead to complex, hard-to-maintain code and bad abstractions.
Explores the differences between websites and web applications, focusing on scaling challenges, user experience, and the benefits of modern frameworks like React.
A software engineer shares strategies for managing cognitive load and improving productivity through documentation, delegation, and focused task completion.
A hiring manager shares advice for technical interviews, framing them as a mutual sales pitch where candidates should position themselves as problem-solvers.
A software engineer discusses strategies for prioritizing and integrating technical cleanup work into the development process, arguing against isolated "technical sprints".
A critique of over-engineering in software development, arguing that excessive abstraction can create complex, unmaintainable code.
A rebuttal to claims that AI will replace software engineers, arguing that coding is a small part of the job and that good software design principles already exist.
